While Western culture prompts us to do our utmost, achieve the maximum, and rise the highest, Taoism preaches lightness as a lifestyle. Chapter 9 of the Tao Te Ching admonishes those who do too much because, more often than not, they will spend more resources than necessary and end up incurring losses.
Lao-Tzu warns us against pursuing excessive wealth and sharpening a knife in excess. If we ignore his words, there will be a moment when excessive wealth becomes a burden and the knife’s over-sharpened blade goes blunt.
The Taoist virtue of lightness is profoundly paradoxical and counter-intuitive. For this reason, it is totally absent in thinkers such as Socrates (469-399 BC), Plato (427-347 BC), Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Augustine (354-430).
In their writings, they encourage us to become the very best possible version of ourselves. Aristotle and Augustine advised us to pursue perfection, even if their works define perfection in widely divergent manners.
Socrates also sought ethical perfection, even if it entailed a great deal of rebelliousness. The same aspiration to perfection can be found in Plato, who went as far as writing a treatise on the organisation of a perfect society.
I’m referring to Plato’s work “Republic,” which would have horrified Lao-Tzu, Yang-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu. Plato endorsed a quasi-totalitarian social organisation for the sake of imposing good ethics. In contrast, Taoism favours lightness in all human interactions. It systematically rejects excessive pressure.
Lao-Tzu’s warning: “enough is enough”
Chapter 33 of the Tao Te Ching calls for moderation. It tells us to stop pushing as soon as we have reached the point where “enough is enough.” While motivational gurus encourage us to “go all in” and “keep going until we win,” Taoism gives us the opposite recommendation, namely, to identify the steps needed to achieve our goals, and walk those steps lightly, not too fast and not too slowly either.
The Taoist virtue of lightness brings immense benefits to its practitioners. Instead of running in circles and exhausting our energy, it calls for taking thoughtful, calculated steps. What do we need to do exactly to succeed financially and socially? And what should we do exactly to protect our health and vitality?
Chuang-Tzu views lightness as a fundamental virtue. When he tells us that “a perfect man has no self,” he means that good people take light steps and move forward without exhausting themselves. They dress inconspicuously, stay under the radar, and their wellbeing remains undetected by criminals.
How do we acquire the virtue of lightness? By choosing to take actions leading to maximum output with minimum effort. And by carrying out the actions in the right sequence, without getting ahead of ourselves.
Lightness is a way of life, not just a trick to be performed from time to time. Before we start learning a foreign language, let us identify the most effective method. Before we repair our bicycle, let us get all our spare parts and tools organized. Life is too short to waste time on errors that we could have avoided.
In Chapter 8 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu encourages us to behave like water, which smoothly gets everywhere and fulfils many functions, but without the need to compete with anyone. Water is the Taoist archetype of lightness and effectiveness.
Taoist lightness and Edouard Manet
We can easily understand the concept of lightness by means of a modern example. I’m going to use the career of the French artist Edouard Manet (1832-1883) to illustrate the Taoist virtue of lightness.
Like many artists of his generation, Manet started his career in total confusion. He first tried to enter the Naval College, but failed to pass the entry examinations twice. Manet was sixteen when he took the entry exams for the first time. He failed again three years later and gave up his ambition to become an officer in the French Navy.
Then he enrolled in the Royal School of Beaux Arts, where he spent six years, mostly devoted to copying classic paintings. He assiduously studied the French, Italian and Spanish masters of the Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassic periods.
Lao-Tzu would have asked Manet if he had reached a level where “enough is enough,” but the question was never asked. I am aware that Manet had no inkling of Taoism, but somehow, he stumbled upon the concept of lightness.
In the initial decade of his career, Manet accumulated one failure after another. His style was indistinguishable from that of his peers and his compositions lacked originality. It’s no wonder that he had all his submissions to the Salon (the Royal Art Exhibition) summarily rejected.
Like most of his peers, Manet could have kept accumulating failure after failure. He would have deployed massive efforts, only to achieve disappointing results. Blind persistence, which is the opposite of lightness, rarely gets things done.
Fortunately, Manet stumbled upon a strategy that emulates the Taoist virtue of lightness. When he was in his late twenties, he reviewed his decade of crushing artistic failure, and asked himself what he needed to change. Could he identify one factor that would enable him to succeed instead of treading water?
Chuang-Tzu’s observation about the perfect man
Manet adopted a strategy that reminds me of Chuang-Tzu’s observation that “a perfect man has no self.” Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, Manet opted for copying famous works from prior centuries, but adapting them to nineteenth-century taste in terms of attire and colours.
Chuang-Tzu would have wholeheartedly endorsed the steps taken by Manet, that is, taking famous works from Giorgione, Titian, Velazquez, Goya, and others, and adapting them to the latest Parisian fashion.
Manet’s most famous painting, “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe,” is inspired by one of Giorgione’s paintings, one that Manet had copied during his six-year study at the Royal School of Beaux Arts. Through that painting, Manet achieved his commercial breakthrough.
It had taken Manet a decade to figure out that he could earn a good living by painting modern adaptations of classic works. Through trial and error, he had discovered the Taoist virtue of lightness. As of that moment, he worked with a narrow focus, and produced one successful painting after another.
Lightness, as defined by Lao-Tzu, is counter-intuitive. Most artists would have kept working harder, but without modifying their approach. Luckily, Manet possessed sufficient humility to realise that, if he wanted to move forward, he would first have to step backwards and adopt a light approach.
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